Heavy Is the Head Which Wears the Crown

Many years ago, when I was a pastor of a congregation in the Greater St. Louis Area, I was blessed to have a mentor/coach/friend who was willing to listen to my belly-aching about frustrations in the pastorate. Yet, often I heard his refrain, “Heavy is the head which wears the crown.” The actual quote comes from Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 2, Act 3, Scene 1. Feeling the burden of leadership, the king bemoans, How many thousand of my poorest subjects are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep, . . . Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

There is a significant burden in being a leader. This is true for parents, pastors, and presidents. Yes, there were times when I lost sleep as a pastor. I lost more nights to sleeplessness when serving as an executive presbyter. I cannot begin to imagine how many sleepless nights presidents of our nation have lost to that burden of responsibility. In the book Executive Orders, President Jack Ryan asks lead Secret Service Agent Andrea Price who she talks to for advice and counsel. She responds, You know, they told me at Quantico, at Basic Officers’ School, that command could be lonely. Boy, they weren’t kidding. They really weren’t kidding. . ..There’s always supposed to be somebody smarter than you. The person you go to when you’re not sure. Now, they come to me. I’m not smart enough for that. (Executive Orders, Tom Clancy, G.P. Putman’s Sons, 1996, pg. 278)

There are times when we as ministers become trapped into having all the answers. The trap can be self-sprung thinking since we are seminary trained we are to have all the answers. The trap can be set and sprung by congregational expectations. Believing we are to have all the answers or being expected to have all the answers leads to sleepless night with an uneasy head. How do we avoid that trap?

In the early 1970s the Presbyterian church school senior high material, Christian Faith and Action, pointed to the necessity of maintaining a “comic perspective” about life and self. It is important for us not to take ourselves too seriously. Not only are we not to believe we have all the answer, we DO NOT have all the answers. It is perfectly acceptable to say, “I don’t know.” It is far better to say that then to make up or give an errant answer.

What about the expectations for congregational members that we will have all the answers? As we maintain a honest comic perspective about our self, we are able to help congregational members loosen up on their expectations of us. We can admit we do not know and offer two options. We can volunteer to try to find the answer. We can enlist them in joining us to find the answer, if there is one.

There are many burdens in being a pastor which can cause sleepless nights. Thinking we have to have all the answers does not need to be one of those burdens.